Ga. Ports Auth. v. Lawyer

• Decision Date: 01 November 2018
• Docket Number: S17G1951
• Citation: 304 Ga. 667,821 S.E.2d 22
• Parties: GEORGIA PORTS AUTHORITY v. LAWYER.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

304 Ga. 667

821 S.E.2d 22

GEORGIA PORTS AUTHORITY

v.LAWYER.

S17G1951

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: November 1, 2018

Ronald Steve Boyter, Jr., Kathleen M. Pacious, Deputy Attorney General, Loretta L. Pinkston-Pope, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Jared Matthew Campbell, Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Alan Pinson, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, DEPARTMENT OF LAW, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, for Appellant.

Brent J. Savage, Brent Jamieson Savage, Jr., Kathryn Hughes Pinckney, SAVAGE TURNER & PINCKNEY PC, P. O. Box 10600, Savannah, Georgia 31401, for Appellee.

Blackwell, Justice.

We granted a petition for a writ of certiorari in this case to reconsider Hines v. Georgia Ports Authority, 278 Ga. 631, 604 S.E.2d 189 (2004), and more specifically, its holding that the Georgia Ports Authority is not an "arm of the state" and has, therefore, no sovereign immunity from a lawsuit in a state court to recover damages under federal maritime law for the tort of a Ports Authority employee. There are several reasons to doubt the soundness of Hines. Most significantly, our decision in Hines was based on an undeveloped factual record, and now having reexamined Hines in the light of the more fully developed record in this case, we can see that Hines failed to accurately assess the relationship between the Ports Authority and the State. We overrule Hines, and we conclude today that the Ports Authority is an "arm of the state" and has sovereign immunity from lawsuits to recover damages under federal maritime law for the torts of its employees.

1. To begin, it is helpful to recount our decision in Hines, which framed the decisions of the trial court and Court of Appeals in this case. In Hines, a longshoreman was injured while working aboard a docked vessel, allegedly as a result of the negligence of an employee of the Ports Authority. He sued the Ports Authority in the Superior Court of Chatham County to recover damages for his injuries under federal maritime law, and the Ports Authority filed a motion to dismiss on the ground of sovereign immunity. See Hines, 278 Ga. at 631, 604 S.E.2d 189. The trial court denied that motion, the Ports Authority took an interlocutory appeal, and the Court of Appeals reversed. The Court of Appeals reasoned that the sovereign immunity reserved to the State and its departments and agencies under the Georgia Constitution¹ does not bar a lawsuit to recover damages under federal maritime law, see Georgia Ports Authority v. Andre Rickmers Schiffsbeteiligungsges MBH & Co., 262 Ga. App. 591, 593 (1), 585 S.E.2d 883 (2003), but the Ports Authority nevertheless enjoys sovereign immunity from such a lawsuit under the Eleventh Amendment.² See id. at 594 (2), 585 S.E.2d 883. The longshoreman-plaintiff then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which this Court granted.

We ultimately rejected the claim of sovereign immunity. To begin, we acknowledged that sovereign immunity extends generally to the Ports Authority. See Hines, 278 Ga. at 632, 604 S.E.2d 189. We characterized the sovereign immunity reserved under the Georgia Constitution, however, as only a "state-conferred immunity," and citing Workman v. Mayor of New York City, 179 U.S. 552, 21 S.Ct. 212, 45 L.Ed. 314 (1900), we held that "state-conferred immunity is preempted by [federal maritime] law." Id. (citations omitted). We next considered whether the Ports Authority enjoys "Eleventh Amendment immunity," explaining that "Eleventh Amendment immunity, unlike state-conferred immunity, does apply to admiralty and maritime claims." Id. at 633, 604 S.E.2d 189 (citation omitted). We said that "the Eleventh Amendment ... protects states and arms of the state from private suits brought in their own courts by any person," but it does not "protect ‘lesser entities’ that are not ‘an arm of the state.’ " Id. (citations omitted). To decide whether the Ports Authority is an "arm of the state" or a mere "lesser entit[y]" for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment, we adopted a standard that requires consideration of three factors: "(1) how state law defines the entity; (2) what degree of control the state maintains over the entity; and (3) from where the entity derives its funds and who is responsible for satisfying the judgments against the entity." Id. at 634, 604 S.E.2d 189 (citing Vierling v. Celebrity Cruises, Inc., 339 F.3d 1309 (11th Cir.2003) ). Of these factors, we said, the last one is the most important. See id.

Applying this standard, we started with the final factor. About the financial interconnectedness of the State and the Ports Authority, we found:

The Ports Authority may raise its own revenue by issuing bonds. Its bonds are not a debt of, nor a pledge of the faith and credit of, the state, and are repayable only from Ports Authority earnings. It may borrow money and acquire property in its own name. Although the Governor may make available to the Ports Authority funds appropriated for the construction of port facilities, the General Assembly is not required to appropriate any funds to satisfy Ports Authority debts or ongoing operations. The Ports Authority must set fees and rentals for services and facilities so that the Ports Authority is financially self-sufficient. ... Finally, the profits of the Ports Authority are held in trust and can only be used for purposes set forth in the statutes establishing the Ports Authority.

Id. at 634-635, 604 S.E.2d 189 (citations omitted). Based on these findings, we concluded that "the record in this case indicates that the Ports Authority is self-sufficient and is not intertwined with the State’s treasury,"and this factor, therefore, "suggests that the Ports Authority is not an arm of the state for Eleventh Amendment purposes." Id. at 636, 604 S.E.2d 189.

Turning to the other factors—the way in which state law defines the Ports Authority and the extent to which the State controls it—we characterized those factors as "mixed." Id. We explained:

The state law defining the Ports Authority is somewhat contradictory: on the one hand, the Ports Authority is a "body corporate and politic," and a "public corporation" rather than a part of any existing state agency. On the other hand, the Ports Authority is performing an essential governmental function. ... Facts showing State control over the Ports Authority include the power of the [G]overnor to appoint members of the Ports Authority board, the requirement of State approval for the purchase or sale of real property, and the exemption of Ports Authority property and income from taxation. Facts demonstrating lesser State control include fixed terms for board members, Ports Authority control over its chair, vice-chair and the establishment of its own rules and regulations, the authority to enter construction contracts without taking competitive bids, and a lack of supervisory control over the daily operations of the Ports Authority. Additionally, unlike many state authorities, the [Ports] Authority is not assigned to any executive department for administrative purposes and is not required to have its books inspected by the State auditor. Finally, the Ports Authority may make contracts with the [S]tate and may sue the State to enforce contracts made between the State and the Ports Authority.

Id. at 636-637, 604 S.E.2d 189 (citations and punctuation omitted). Notwithstanding our characterization of these factors as "mixed," we concluded that both factors "tend to weigh towards a finding of no immunity." Id. at 636, 604 S.E.2d 189.

In the end, we concluded that "the Ports Authority is not an arm of the State" for Eleventh Amendment purposes. Id. at 637, 604 S.E.2d 189. We cautioned, however, that the factual record upon which our conclusion was based was an undeveloped one, noting that the Ports Authority in Hines had elected to proceed upon a motion to dismiss without the benefit of "an evidentiary record." Id. at 636 n.32, 604 S.E.2d 189. In particular, we observed that "[a]n analysis of the Ports Authority budget would be most useful in determining whether it was dependent upon the State," but the undeveloped record did not permit such an analysis. Id. With Hines in mind, we turn now to the facts of this case and the proceedings below.

2. Bruce Lawyer was seriously injured while working as a longshoreman aboard a vessel docked at the Port of Savannah, and in February 2013, he filed a lawsuit in the State Court of Chatham County against the Ports Authority, seeking to recover damages for his injuries. In his pleadings, Lawyer alleged that the negligence of a crane operator employed by the Ports Authority had caused his injuries, and he asserted a claim against the Ports Authority for negligence under federal maritime law. In response to the lawsuit, the Ports Authority invoked the doctrine of sovereign immunity. The Ports Authority conceded that the Tort Claims Act³ waives sovereign immunity for claims to recover damages for the tort of a state employee up to $1 million,⁴ but it urged that sovereign immunity bars any claim to recover damages in excess of that amount. To that end, the Ports Authority filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit to the extent that Lawyer sought to recover damages in excess of $1 million. The trial court deferred ruling on the motion until after trial,⁵ and in April 2016, the case was tried by a Chatham County jury. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Lawyer and against the Ports Authority, awarding $4.5 million in damages.

Following the verdict, the trial court took up the motion to dismiss, receiving evidence and additional briefing on the question of sovereign immunity. Consistent with our decision in Hines, the trial court framed the question as one that turns upon whether the Ports Authority is an "arm of the state," and to assess whether the Ports Authority is properly characterized as an "arm of the state," the trial court looked to the three factors that we identified in Hines—the way in which state...